Lew Grade obituary
When Lord Grade died just before Christmas, it was more than just the passing of a larger than life figure on the UK entertainment scene.
It marked the demise of the last great impresario to make the leap from music hall to TV and films.
And Lew was also the last great link with the old Jewish East End – the East End of working class lads who transformed themselves through hard work and an eye for the chance into the great entrepreneurs of post-War London.
Louis Winogradsky was born in the Ukrainian town of Tokmak on Christmas Day 1906, to parents Olga and Isaac. But in 1912, along with thousands of other Jewish families, the family fled the pogroms in the Tsar’s empire to a new life in the East End.
It was an uncertain existence. Within the first months, Isaac had lost all the capital he had brought with him. The Winogradsky boys, however, were adapting to London life a little better.
Louis and little brothers Leslie and Bernard (later the theatrical impresario Lord Del- font) excelled at the Rochelle Street School in Shoreditch, and Louis was soon coming top of the class in maths.
But showbiz seemed to be in the blood and, while Isaac was making a fresh start managing a cinema in Soho’s Brewer Street (Paul Raymond’s Revue Bar today), young Lou was skipping Saturday morning synagogue to go to the pictures.
He didn’t find his niche straight away. First he decided to put his maths nous to use as an accountant, then at 15 became an agent for a rag trade firm. The budding entrepreneur soon set up his own firm with his dad, turning out clothes 24-hours a day.
Fred’s favourite
But his energy wasn’t confined to work. He loved to go dancing at the East Ham Palais. And in 1926, “Louis Grad” was crowned World Solo Charleston Champion at the Albert Hall. The judge? No less than Fred Astaire.
Lew was hooked and sold up the firm to become a professional dancer, “the man with the musical feet”.
By now he was “Lew Grade”, after his name was misspelt on a bill, but by the 1930s knee problems – and the fact that the Charleston had had its day – prompted him to move into management.
He first worked for the agent Joe Collins, Joan and Jackie’s dad. Then, after returning from a wartime stint in the Army, set up with his brother Leslie. As a minnow in a hard business, Lou had to fight for his share, and he went over to the States to snatch up-and-coming acts, bringing Lena Horne, Johnny Ray and Jack Benny to London.
The biggest agent in Britain now moved into fledgling commercial TV. The Midlands franchise (ATV, now Central) was a flop at first. But Lou knew what sold, and Crossroads, Emergency Ward 10, General Hospital and the Muppets made the station one of the giants, along with Granada and Thames.
Titanic flop
Films beckoned too with successes like the Pink Panther series and On Golden Pond. And Lew got there nearly 20 years before James Cameron and Leonardo Di Caprio. Unfortunately though, his 1980 production Raise The Titanic was such a flop that he remarked that “it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic!”
Joking apart, the financial disaster nearly sunk Grade’s company ACC, and it signalled the beginning of the end of his one-man operation.
But even when he’d loosened the reins at ACC, Lew just couldn’t stop working – finding new talent and setting up deals well into his nineties. Even the energetic Grade couldn’t finish one of his projects though – he had bought 450 of Barbara Cartland’s books with the aim of making films of them.
One of the big men of the entertainment industry, he’ll always be remembered for his chutzpah and big cigar.
Louis Winogradsky died Baron Grade of Elstree, just days short of his 92nd birthday, which would have fallen on Christmas Day.